Monday, November 1, 2010

Dark Eldar vs Tyranids

By TheGraveMind

I had my very first game against dark eldar yesterday. The internet will tell you that it is a bad match up for Tyranids. Well for once the internet is right. The local Eldar player was like, "My strategy is to ram their vehicles, and use Star engines. What is yours?" Well... mine is to do the picture. My army goes belly up. The strategy part is to try and not do it too quickly. I had a rough weekend, so I didn't remember to take to many pictures, but here goes.

We rolled up 4 objectives with dawn of war. It was somewhat diamond shaped on the objectives. One is inside the far left middle building, one is in front of my Hive Tyrant, another is on the other side of the large center piece, and the fourth is top right just out of the picture.

I deployed warriors and prime in center to control the board with S5 guns, and contest that objective. He had his bikes turbo boost on 1st turn, and had everything else in raiders/ravagers deep striking using the Duke.

I had thrown together a list while on the way over, since some of my standard units are underconstruction for the upcoming tournament. Yes, I am using my Tyranids again.
So my list really was not ready to face dark eldar. Between blasters and poison guns, a single squad almost single-handedly took out my large warrior squad. He took a side and wiped my flank. So many lances and blasters took down my Tyrannofex, then my Tervigon, and then my Tyrant.

At the end of Turn 5, The game kept going, he had 2 objectives, I had 0, I had a Tyrannofex in front of his army, and Death Leaper coming back from reserves. I passed my leadership with the Tfex, and moved and assaulted his skimmer so I was contesting an objective. Death leaper jumped in the middle to contest and shoot at the warriors there. Two shots both hit, and both rended! S6 AP2 shots take out two warriors. But alas, Duke is in that squad, so they don't take a moral test as its not 25%. GRRR.

His turn, He fires a lot of blasters and lances at the Death Leaper, who goes to ground and makes all of his 2+ cover saves. But then Dukes squad fires a lot of poison weapons and oh look, I fail three 2+ cover saves to infantry fire. Death leaper dies. The rest of the shots go into my Tyrannofex, with his one last blaster, doing the last wound. So he is back to holding 2 objectives, and I'm tabled.

Death leaper really didn't do much for me this game. And I realized yet again how much of a point sink is for a Hive Tyrant. 280 points to fire a Large blast S6 AP6 twice. But We Learn, We Adapt, We Thrive. Vital information was acquired, feeder tendrils did their jobs, and I'll be better prepared for next time!

The hive tyrant isn't that big of a point sink depending on the point total of the game. Warriors are actually really bad to have against dark eldar since they don't have the best saves and get expensive quick. I'd like to know what the points were and what the lists were... but as you saw Dark eldar loves us sinking points into warriors.

Being relatively familiar with both armies, I would go out on a limb and say that Hive Guard are one thing that DE need to drop quickly. Thing is, they're pretty good at it - a full Raider squad is pumping out 7-8 wounds against them.

It didn't help my tervigon locked up on turn one. I don't think warriors would be that bad against them, since they are good against both their skimmers, and practically all of their infantry, in shooting and in combat.

Problem is I didn't have any hiveguard, they are all being worked on. I do think Tyrants are horribly over costed and giant point sinks. I wouldn't realistically consider using one in anything under 2k. I probably wouldn't use him until I hit 2.5k. GW simply ruined him for me.

I tend to not put him (Tyrant) in until 2k, but I think he's actually a decent cost for what you get. He stopped being a simple beatstick and started being a hardcore support monster. Not shabby in assault by any means (with some interesting tricks), and his powers can severely work with your other units.

One of my favorite things is Parox/Scream for powers, especially on a guy with a gun. Use Parox on a unit about to get charged by gaunts or whatsuch to help them out, maybe shoot into it for good measure. Next turn the idea is to get in between a couple of assaults, use Scream (it doesn't target, just hits everything in range), then assault one of those units to finish them off.

I've just started using Hive Commander - as the only reliable source of Reserves control, it has its perks.

Basically the more he supports your swarm as a whole, the more you get.

I think the warriors points could have been spent on hive guard. (yes I know you didn't have them they were being worked on).

I don't see how Tyranids are going to have a problem against DE, just open their transports and call it a day. I feel bad because I always come off bashing you Grave but please don't think that true. The warriors fail my friend. In 2.5k or maybe 2k I guess take them, however that's a lot of points to sink into a 1.5 game.

Have you thought about devours on your tyrant? or carnifex with devours? With one pair it's STR 6 TL AP- assault 6 shots. I know they have no AP however the vehicles are open topped which gets negated by the -1 for no AP. however with 2 pairs that's 12 STR 6 TL AP- shots :-D

You know you needed the hive guard, so I can't make too many suggestions other than that. If you desire look into the devours on TMC they're nice. ^_^

I don't take it offensively Rionnay, it is different play styles and opinions.

The Warriors would have been great if I hadn't had to use them to pop transports, and if I hadn't been so risky with them.

DE cause problems for tyrnids through their fast moving, large amount of S8 AP2, and poison weapons. Imagine if all SM missiles were AP2, and Meltas had 24" range. In this given game, He was able to deep strike a ravagers or two and some raiders, and fire 6-8 Lances into a MC, and maybe finish it up with poison or blasters from bikes or other infantry. He was pretty much dropping a TMC a turn. And honestly DE build bettter at 1,500 than Nids do. Tyranids shine at 1750-2000. My opinion of course.

I have thought about devourers on Tyrants, and I found them lacking. Probably cause I've been spoiled from last edition. For 195 points, I had a Tyrant, wings, 2+/6++, BS4, with 12 shots devourer twin linked, with rerolls to wound.This edition, the same thing would be around 275 points, and its B3 shots, and only 3+. So I went from averaging 9.5 wounds, to 7.5 wounds, now vulnerable to AP3, and almost 100 more points.

First off..Hive guard would have been so much better than for the points than T-fexes in this case..the t-fexes just aren't reliable enough to take down the kind of armor the DE have.. Also never been a fan of the monsterous creature barbed strangler (or stranglethorn cannon) Yes its a large blast and will kill dark eldar infantry units with ease...but you got to get them out of those raiders first.. As rionay said take devourers (one set would be just about good as a barbed strangler wound wise against dark eldar) Or take a venom cannon as some long range anti-vehicle support.

the raider/ravager spam list like this is nothing new as a tactic for DE.. they just got a few new rules to add to it. Most of their heavy firepower in that list is in the vehicles... and your list is short on reliable antitank.

Dark elder are probably the best anti infantry in the game but on the other hand they have a harder time against vehicles. Being an extremely new player who is picking up Dark elder as his first army I don't know that much but try to play defensive and be really good at making sure that none of your units get killed. With dark elder if you start making movement they will out manoeuvre you, if you send out units or let them get killed as bait they will only get stronger due to pain tokens. It even says in the codex that Dark Eldar are great at killing creatures. So don't let them kill your units or use speed to their advantage and if they deep strike gang up, in fact gang on alll DE units